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Sounding Images #1: Decoder (1984)

SOUNDING IMAGES starts on July 26 2016 with a screening of the legendary German underground film Decoder (1984), starring Bill Rice, Christiane F, Genesis P-Orridge and William S. Burroughs among others. The score of it’s equally celebrated soundtrack was written by Genesis P-Orridge, Dave Ball and F.M. Einheit, Jon Caffery and features music by Soft Cell, Einstürzende Neubauten and The The.

Klaus Maeck, who co-wrote and -produced it, will be present and introduce the film. After the screening a Q&A with Maeck and Fiona McGovern will follow.

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Decoder is a legendary German underground film from 1984, based on the cut ups of William S. Burroughs (who is playing a guest role in the film). The story of urban chaos and intrigue focuses on the sonic experiments of the disillusioned ‚noise­freak’ FM, who is experimenting with music and infra­sound. In search of new and extreme sounds he stumbles into a kind of black mass being celebrated by urban pirates. He is able to convince them to join him in his search for an antidote to muzak, as he discovers that the musical tranquilizer can become a brain poison. After distributing multiple copies of their anti­tape the urban pirates successfully induce nausea in H­Burger­restaurants, not to the liking of their multinational headquarters who promptly dispatch a special agent to stop the tape­terrorism which spreads rapidly, leading to mass civil disobedience and street fighting.

Directed by Muscha. Written and produced by Klaus Maeck, Muscha, Volker Schäfer and Trini Trimpop.

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Klaus Maeck is a German film producer and music publisher. In the early 1980’s he had the first punk record shop (Rip Off) in his hometown of Hamburg, which soon distributed independent German music worldwide. At that time he also started to shoot Super 8 films and produced Decoder (1984), his first feature film. 1986 Maeck was co-founder and longtime CEO of the independent music publisher “Freibank Music Publishing”, initiated by the band Einstürzende Neubauten for which he also worked as a manager. Always one foot in the film business, he produced and directed several music videos and two documentaries (William S.Burroughs: Commissioner of Sewers, 1991; Einstürzende Neubauten: Liebeslieder, 1993). Prior to co-founding the Hamburg film production company corazón International in 2003 with acclaimed film director Fatih Akin, Maeck had been increasingly active as a consultant for film music. With Akin he produced his next 5 films as well as films of Özgür Yildirim, Xiaolu Guo and others. In 2013 Maeck founded his new film production company Interzone Pictures. His newest film B-MOVIE: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin premiered at Berlinale in 2015.